May 2023

Jun 02, 2023

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, now May’s done, did I survive;? Well given I’m writing this, the answer is obviously yes. But, overall I feel like I have been a little bit quieter than usual this month and much of that is down to some additional travel for work (more details below), and that I have been focussed on a project that I have not yet released any details about. Very much feeling like the swan gliding across the water with the feet frantically paddling below, but all-in-all, it has been a month of lots of activity, even if most of it was behind-the-scenes stuff.

ThoughtAsylum

While I have been quite busy making stuff this past month, blog posts were definitely, and consciously, not so high on the agenda. I did get one blog post published in May, and that was my 5 Tips for Posting on a Technology Forum. This is a post that has been simmering away for years now and gathers together most of the frustrations I have when people post on technology forums. It was certainly a bit of a cathartic outlet, but moreover I hope that it will be something people find useful and that can be used as a quick reference for a handful of considerations that can be shared with forum users. The question is how can I get the message to the people who need to read this? If you know someone who would benefit from the tips I shared in this post, please do pass them the link.

Forums

It has felt like a pretty sedate month on the forums with a few interesting topics, but generally things being quiet. I suspect it is the calm before the WWDC storm.

One thing long term followers may have noticed is that I have not posted my annual pre-WWDC Automation Wish post on the Automators forum. After years of giving people one wish via my annual question, I have finally given up on the ability of all (most do, but somehow not all) respondents to comprehend the request, let alone the general guidance I put in such posts. I simply don’t have the headspace to try and explain yet again why two or more wishes is antithetical to the whole question, or why I impose guidelines to help constrain that year’s topic. I don’t want to try and show that the fun is in trying to come up with something inspirational and perhaps clever, rather than trying to game the question or go off on a tirade about Apple and automation. For this year at least, so rests my annual challenge to others. At best, consider it a year off to consider extended reality headsets of the fruity variety.

Drafts

Automators

Other

One of my Alfred workflows, Slink, a workflow for working with Brett Terpstra’s SearchLink utility was included in the Alfred gallery. It also received several new features including a way to add your own custom overrides. This was something I was doing in Keyboard Maestro previously, but after a prompt from the Alfred team, I added some hotkey triggers, and found the maintenance felt a little more convenient utilising Alfred and so switched my own more bespoke case over to something I could easily expand and share with everyone.

I also updated several other of my Alfred workflows.

  • I updated my relatively new Read the 🤐 Manual workflow to correct some wording left over from a copy and paste.

  • I got around to fixing a legacy Alfred issue with the diagnostics page in theConductor workflow for Keyboard Maestro

  • I updated myBypass workflow for Apple Shortcuts with an option to use the ID for a shortcut in URLs rather than the name (the ID remains constant when renaming a shortcut).

I also spent some time in London at learning events this month. I spent a couple of days at the London ExCeL for the Learning Technologies 2023 (London) event where the AI bandwagon was definitely out in force. While I definitely see many uses for responsible use of AI in learning, the number of organisations that felt bolting on an option to create text content via ChatGPT was a good use of AI was staggering. I guess for many it was table stakes, but it left me quite sad to see so many in the industry making such a big deal of it. Other than ChatGPT, I think the not quite so AI that stole the show was Titan.

I also spent the day at a SAP and TalenTeam Learning and Skills forum. Focusing purely on SAP technologies, it was a great opportunity to not only see some of the upcoming plans from SAP, but also to speak to other SAP customers and discover where they are on their learning and skills journeys. Skill ontologies are definitely the one to watch for 2023/24 on the SAP customer roadmaps. Also, a gold star for anyone who can spot me in the photo below - I am in there 😉

Upcoming

In the last few monthly updates I have mentioned a “new” project, which is now very much an ongoing project. While I am still attempting to get my head fully round the scale of this project, I have definitely made a huge step forward this past month concerning the volume of ‘things to do’. There is little doubt in my mind that I am still only a fraction of the way into where I want it too be, but I expect to release the project as a work in progress before I have it u"complete" and with any luck, it will be an ongoing project for a good while to come, having no “finished” milestone in sight. It is just a case of getting it to where I feel it is a viable offering to a particular community, and that’s something I fully expect to be able to do later this year. But even after sinking many hours of effort into it, I have many more hours to expend.

As always, thank you to everyone who has bought me a coffee. Each cup supports the sorts of efforts I list out above. From helping people in the online community via forums, and writing blog posts on various topics, to providing automations, and whatever this latest project turns out to be. Your generosity enables my cup to runneth over with coffee foam.

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